For those wishing to follow the development of The Tavern through social media, you’ll find The Tavern on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and we’ll make sure to post all relevant news and updates for The Tavern on both the main website and each of those services.

Though it has been a while since our last update, our situation has not changed much; we’ve mainly just kept on working on our game (The Tavern). We’re also putting the finishing touches on the first version of the game’s dedicated website, which will sport more frequent updates about the game and its development progress, as well as the first proper gameplay details, answers to frequently asked questions, some early screenshots, etc.

Speaking of screenshots… Here’s a small teaser:

Work-in-Progress

So, what else is happening? Well, let’s see… every year school-kids in Norway (9th graders) get to work for various businesses for 3-5 days, to get a taste of the life that awaits them after they’re done studying, and we had two kids work here for three days, during which time they helped us test The Tavern, provided feedback and criticism on the game and the game’s website (under development), and got their feet wet with Unity by using the editor to create some small game-areas of their own. Hopefully this can inspire them to seek out a career in game development! If you’re reading this: Thanks for your help, guys! 🙂

Around the same time, we were interviewed by some kids working in a similar fashion for a local newspaper, and got featured as part of an ongoing series said newspaper is doing on local businesses. Free advertisement is free, and whatnot! 😉

Last, but not least, we’ve also received some support in the shape of a small grant from a local/regional fund for startups (hoppid.no), which will allow us to keep on doing what we’re doing for a bit longer than originally estimated, without an immediate need for additional funding (though additional funding is always a good thing)! Huzzah!

Celebrations and much drinking of Urge is in order, as our deathstar indie development studio is now fully operational and we can finally, after several weeks of waiting for bureaucracy to run its course, announce that Way North Studios AS is officially open for business development!

We did already do a soft-launch of sorts in various social media, but we have since then been busy sorting out everything that needed sorting out, such as signing all the necessary company-registration documents, paying various fees to bank and government, purchasing necessary hardware and software, ordering (and waiting in patience for) an Internet connection for our office, and so forth.

That is not to say that we’ve been sitting on our hands not doing anything meanwhile! We’ve been hard at work on design-documents, sketches and prototype-plans for our first game, as well as establishing processes and fine-tuning the tools we’ll be making use of during development. Recently we also got a proper Internet-connection installed in the office, instead of the limited 3G connection we used as a temporary solution. Now, with all the bureaucracy finally out of the way (for now), and with all the needed hardware and software in place, we’ve at last been able to bunker down and get started with proper, hands-on development of the early prototype for our game.

Speaking of prototypes, and games – we might as well go ahead and announce what game we’re making:

The Tavern

The Tavern will be a low-fantasy role-playing game for PC (/Mac/Linux) in which we will attempt to combine multiplayer socializing with singleplayer adventuring. Keywords: Tavern-hubs, adventures with branching storylines, monsters from myths, legends and folktales. Turn-based combat (probably). Oh, and (fully avoidable) permanent death. Anyhow, it’s still early days, so we do not have many details to share as of yet, but below you’ll find a teaser-screenshot of a prototype we’re working on. You can also head over to our Games-page for slightly more information about the game.

We will post more details about the game as development progresses.

The Tavern – teaser/prototype screenshot

NOTE: We are still on the lookout for anyone who might be interested in joining us now early on as fellow co-founders. If you want to make games and you think you have the skills, the potential, the drive and/or commitment required to contribute – don’t hesitate, let us know! In fact, contact us even if you don’t aspire to become a co-founder, but you still feel that you can and want to contribute in some way.

We are currently on the lookout – for a limited amount of time – for someone to join us as fellow or secondary co-founders of Way North Studios. This entails investing some amount of time, money and labor in the company in return for founder-status, shared ownership (where the size of the ownership-share depends on the level of investment/commitment) and the opportunity to get in at the ground floor to help develop and grow our business into a self-sufficient and thriving independent game development studio.

This will of course require sacrifice, hard work, strength of character, staying-power and a collective will to succeed. The results of these efforts? Being able to get one’s foot in the door of the game development industry and participate in the creation of some great games; working in a challenging, creative and entertaining environment; (potentially) becoming one’s own boss for once; the chance to create works of entertainment that can inspire joy and excitement in thousands of people all over the world. Oh, and down the road – assuming we play our cards right – there might also be some monetary rewards involved… …if you’re into that sort of thing.

If any of this sounds interesting and you’ve got a passion for games as well as skills and/or experience that you think might be relevant to a startup company focused on independent game development – contact us and we’ll talk details!

Some examples of skills/experiences that might come in handy, though this is by no measure a complete list, and we might not need all of these from the get-go:

Earlier today we located, inspected and promptly secured what will become the office space for Way North Studios. As can be seen by the below photos of sub-par quality taken with a cellphone, we’ll have to clear out the remnants of the previous inhabitants – now long gone – of said office space, but aside from that it’s a spacious, well-lit locale. All it needs is a dab of soap and water here, a couple of computers set up over there, some precious Internet plugged in everywhere….our precioussss internetssss…

…and no, it’s not your Amiga that has come to life, but another indie game development studio! In one of the coming days we will officially announce the launch of our new studio – Way North Studios. In the mean time, we’re hard at work getting all the basics of company and website (this very website) creation out of the way.

Our plan is simple: To take over the world! …or to become the best game designers and developers that we can possibly be, through hard work, sweat, tears, soda, blood, strawberries, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck/back injuries and even more hard work. And also, Norwegian brown cheese.

Whether we’ll ultimately succeed in this endeavor or if we’ll end up wandering from island to island begging for scraps has not yet been determined. Fate will take its course.